. Jake .:
Jen's posts on the thread being deleted I can't comment on them; this is the first I'm catching wind of these events. But Bill's posts were clearly over the top and counterproductive and it seems an offense to reason to suggest they aren't straight up sexist. Zoom out from our computers and look at his words in the context of the real world: come the fuck on. Get real. And he suddenly shows up and that's his contribution? Seriously. Jesus. This is emberrassing.
Hmm, yes, some serious sexism oozing from Bill's posts:
Women will come to participate in this forum when they actually have a practice to participate about. We do not do anything that deters them.
Women are welcome to come and talk about their practices.
Women can come and talk about their practice if they have a practice, no one will stop them, and people will say what they know to say.
I think the mistake that you and Jen and Florian are making is that you are equating feminism with gender equality, and therefore anti-feminism with sexism. But this is like saying, if you're against welfare, you hate poor people; if you're against the minimum wage, you hate unskilled workers; if you're against public education, you don't want people to be educated; if you're against government-paid healthcare, you want everyone to get sick and die, etc. That's not actually the case. I *do* care about gender equality, but I think feminism actively works against that.
This, I think, is where Bill was speaking from. That he did it in a highly offensive and non-productive way, yes, I agree, and I think I would be okay with moderating for reasons of politeness. But I would not be okay with moderating anti-feminist discussions on grounds of sexism, because I don't think those are necessarily the same. To actually make the case for that, would require a lot more posts and a lot of patience and it seems extremely liable to heated discussion, and I'm not sure it would be worthwhile, but I at least wanted to share my perspective.